This invention relates to surgical apparatus and, more particularly, to apparatus for supporting the legs and feet of a patient during surgery.
Surgical procedures involving the feet and ankles are usually conducted while the patient is lying in a supine position upon a surgical table. Typically the surgeon and the assistants are standing up at the foot end and adjacent sides of the table or are sitting in the same relative positions and have no elbow or forearm support. In this position, the surgical field is not perpendicular to the line of vision. Typically, the surgeon and the assistant do not face each other and the patient's foot and ankle are not located between them.
Furthermore, in the case of foot surgery, modern surgical procedures often require exact dissection and fine reconstruction. For example, microsurgery of the foot--such as reimplantation of an amputated foot or the use of a part of the foot as a donor to the hand, as in the transfer of a big toe as a thumb to the hand--requires prolonged hours of minute dissection. The standard operating table does not permit the surgeon and/or his assistants comfortably to rest their arms during the long hours of delicate operation.
Accessory devices have been provided for attachment to medical tables and the like for supporting a patient's hand or arm. Such devices are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,609,261, issued to J. A. Parker on Sept. 2, 1952, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,045,011, issued to J. L. Ford on Aug. 30, 1977. U.S. Pat. No. 3,046,072, issued to Douglass, Jr. et al. on July 24, 1962 also discloses an accessory board for supporting a patient's arm or leg in a laterally outstretched position. But these prior devices are not suitable for supporting a patient's feet, particularly both feet simultaneously. No prior art devices have been provided for attachment to a surgical table to support a patient's legs and feet during the performance of surgical procedures thereon.